Welcome to the Queens of Britain series. In 2024, the blog will spotlight the reigning queens from the island of Great Britain. Check back regularly to learn about the women who led their nations.
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| By François Clouet via Wikimedia Commons |
Child kings are relatively common across European history. A couple of kings were proclaimed from the moment of their births. A child queen, like reigning queens in general, is something much more rare. The two most prominent, Mary Queen of Scots and Christina of Sweden, both led rather unusual lives and each made the decision to abdicate at a young age. (Read my post
Abdicating Queens.)
The turbulent life and reign of Mary Queen of Scots reverberates through history and has generated an important segment of tourism across several areas of Scotland. If you can't find a walking tour or spot that references her, you probably never left your inn. For Mary, the tumult started before she was week old. In the space of just 44 years, she was orphaned, was queen regnant of Scotland, queen consort of France, thrice widowed, possibly raped, witnessed a dear friend's brutal murder, perhaps had a husband murdered, abdicated, abandoned her only child, and ultimately was executed by someone she hoped she could trust.
Let's start at the very beginning. The course of the Scottish monarchy was perhaps a touch more volatile than most monarchies of the pre-modern era. The nearly constant warfare often led to the early death of kings and accession of youngsters. Mary's father, King James V of Scotland, was the product of an attempt at peace between England and Scotland. His mother was Margaret Tudor, older sister of England's King Henry VIII. The peace was very short-lived. James ascended the throne at 17 months old when his father was killed at the Battle of Flodden. Like his uncle, he was something of a Renaissance man. Also like his uncle, he was not very successful at creating male heirs. His first wife, 16-year-old French princess Madeleine of Valois died within months of their wedding. A year later, he married another French princess Marie of Guise. Marie gave birth to two princes, James Duke of Rothesay and Robert Duke of Albany. However, the two boys died within 14 hours of each other when James 11 months old and Robert just nine days.
James and Marie were distraught but still young. The loss of infants was fairly common in those days. When Marie became pregnant again a year later, they likely thought this would be the first of several more children. James was away at war when Marie went into labor earlier than expected. Alas, he never even met her. He died following defeat at Solway Moss. Some say he suffered a nervous breakdown; others that he drank contaminated water. The outcome was the same: his six-day-old daughter was proclaimed the first-ever Queen of Scotland.
Named Mary for her mother, the infant queen was the center of conflict from the beginning. The struggle for control of baby Mary and the kingdom was primarily between the Catholic Cardinal Beaton and the Protestant Earl of Arran. Arran served as regent for most of Mary's childhood until her mother Marie of Guise was proclaimed regent 11 years later. By then, Mary was living in France being raised at the French court alongside her future husband, the Dauphin Francis.
The first suitor for Mary had actually been Uncle Henry VIII's much longed-for heir Edward. Despite a treaty stating that the two children would marry, Scotland was not keen on the idea, preferring to maintain its longstanding alliance with France against England. Once Henry became aware of their intent, he renewed English attacks on Scotland in what became known as the War of the Rough Wooing. He failed and five-year-old Mary sailed off to France with a retinue of four noble girls also named Mary.
There, she was under the direct care of her future mother-in-law Catherine de Medici along with Catherine's 10 children. Like her Tudor cousins, Mary was red-haired. She grew to be nearly six foot tall. After 10 years in France, she and Francis were finally wed. The next year, his father died in a jousting accident and the Queen of Scotland was crowned Queen of France. Her double crown was to be short-lived. Francis died in the 17th month of his reign.
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By Francois Clouet in the Royal Collection via Wikimedia Commons |
At 18, Mary returned to Scotland as a widow. The country had changed during her absence. John Knox and the Protestants had gained tremendous power and did not welcome the return of a Catholic queen. With her mother's death the previous year, the young woman was left to navigate dangerous waters with few true allies. Her illegitimate half-brother James Earl of Moray was a Protestant leader at court and her chief advocate. Mary adopted tolerance toward Protestants despite her own staunch religious beliefs. This may have been because she did not have enough power to oppose the Protestants or it may have been because she had her eyes on another prize: England.
By now, the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I was firmly in control in England and she had been refusing to marry and beget her own heir. Catholics in England, who saw Elizabeth as illegitimate, already believed Mary was the rightful English queen. She definitely had genealogy in her favor: as the senior descendant of King Henry VIII's older sister, she had the strongest dynastic claim even though Margaret Tudor had surrendered accession rights for her descendants when she married into Scotland. With this close blood between them, Elizabeth was inclined to keep a close eye on Mary, who could pose a strong threat against her.
Unlike Elizabeth, Mary was eager to marry and have children. She was besieged by suitors but ultimately fell sway to the handsome and dashing Henry Stuart Lord Darnley. From the beginning, it was a dangerous liaison. Not only were both of them volatile; they both had claims to both thrones of England and Scotland. Henry's mother was the daughter of Margaret Tudor by a second marriage, making him the most senior male in line for the English crown. On his father's side, Henry was descended from King James II of Scotland. At the time of Mary's accession, there had been a small potential that the throne could have gone to Henry's father. The marriage greatly angered Elizabeth--to have two potential heirs marry each other added to the fact that they were both Catholic felt very dangerous to her. She had Henry's mother Margaret Douglas, who lived most of her life in England, arrested.
Initially, the couple seemed to be very passionate but it soured quickly. Darnley was ambitious and jealous. He wanted to control Mary and Scotland, but Mary refused to name him King. It took little to stoke his anger especially when he was drunk, which he often was. When rumors arose that Mary was having an affair with his former friend and confidante David Rizzio, Darnley was enraged. He ordered a raid on Mary's suite where her entourage, including Rizzio, were dining. Rizzio initially hid behind Mary, but he was dragged away and stabbed over 50 times. One of Darnley's co-conspirators held the queen at gunpoint during the attack. Mary was six months pregnant when she experienced this violence.
Mary officially accepted Darnley's protestations of innocence. Their son James was born but their marriage remained rocky. Divorce was discussed and the couple were separated. Aware that the Catholic Church would not grant a divorce without delegitimizing her son, Mary convinced Darnley to return to Edinburgh. He was staying at the other end of the town from her when his house suddenly exploded. His strangled body was later found outside. Many believed Mary had ordered his murder, just 11 months after Rizzio was slaughtered, but the evidence is impossible to know definitively, even today.
James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, was immediately suspected of leading the murder plot. An early supplicant for Mary's hand in marriage before she married Darnley, Bothwell pressed his suit harder now. He kidnapped Mary and raped her, forcing her to become his wife. Or so one version of the story goes. In another version, Mary had colluded with him all along and willingly joined forces with him to strengthen her position in the wake of Darnley's death. Whichever version is true, the newly married couple was quickly besieged by opposing lords. Within a couple of months, Mary was captured and imprisoned at Lochleven, where she miscarried twins. A month later, she was forced to abdicate in favor of her son, whom she would never see again. The new King James VI was 13 months old.
Bothwell fled to Denmark. Mary escaped Lochleven after a nearly a year and managed to raise an army but was defeated. In desperation, she made her way to England, intending to get her cousin Queen Elizabeth to help her recapture her throne. Elizabeth had no such intention.
Instead, Elizabeth kept her elegant confinement at various stately homes for the next 19 years, never deigning to meet her. She kept her spies busy making sure that Mary was not plotting against her until finally, at last, they had evidence of Mary consorting with Catholics to have Elizabeth assassinated. During her trial, Mary asserted that she was not subject to English judgement because she was a foreign Queen but her protestations fell on deaf ears, particularly since the evidence against her was damning.
Mary was executed at Fotheringhay on February 7, 1587. Her beheading was one of the bloodiest on record, requiring three strikes to finish the deed. Altogether, Mary spent only 12 years in Scotland. Adding insult to injury, she was not returned to France as requested but was buried with Protestant rights at Peterborough Cathedral.
Nineteen years later, her son succeeded Elizabeth as King of England. Although he expressed little affection for the mother who had abandoned him and whom he had never known, he had her body moved to Westminster Abbey in London to be buried among the monarchs of England. In the end, she did get the English throne for her descendants. Every British monarch since Elizabeth has been descended from Mary Queen of Scots.
